This hands-on business approach of making things happen has enabled us to keep turnover stable and limit the impact of a globally restrained investment climate on our order intake. As a result of our ongoing efforts to strengthen internal productivity, we improved profitability despite stable turnover. We also made another big stride in terms of the robustness of our balance sheet, especially in view of the further increase in our equity ratio. Customer service, a key differentiator and enabler for our customers, experienced marked growth. The further development and implementation of our service portfolio in 2024 driven by digital services and enhanced service offerings, including the contribution of our expertise, played a crucial role in the success of our customers, as this resulted in higher yields, and reductions in emissions, energy, waste, and water. 

A priority in 2024 has been investment in emerging markets. We extended our reach by investing in our locations such as Brazil, India, and Vietnam to name a few. By further developing significant production facilities, we provide reliability and security for our customers. Our continuous enhancement of infrastructure globally positively impacted our growing customer base in low-, middle-, and high-income countries alike.  

We continued to drive innovation across our business in 2024, with a focus on our core. As a result, our largest unit, Milling Solutions, has witnessed record success. Over the past two years, Milling Solutions reinforced its global leadership position in this large market, adding 30,000 tonnes of daily processing capacity, which provides staple foods to about 60 million people. Our new grain research and training centers in Kano (Nigeria) and Uzwil (Switzerland) demonstrate our commitment to driving collaboration and innovation in the food and feed industries and contribute to food security.

The Advanced Materials business benefited from the positioning of its core product portfolios, despite uncertainties in global automotive markets which affected turnover. Bühler maintained its market share in this challenging environment and our Leybold Optics business generated strong results.  

All of this is only possible with highly skilled and engaged people. This is why we also continued to invest in our education program concentrating on supporting, training, and developing people – from apprenticeships to expert-level programs – as well as increasing training opportunities for our customers. It is noteworthy that three of our young talents won medals at the 2024 WorldSkills, an international competition highlighting vocational excellence.

We thank our customers, partners, employees, and the Bühler family for their confidence, trust, and loyalty. Your collaboration has been vital to our resilience and progress and is the basis of our commitment to you in the future.